“Collision Course”
Chapter One: Curse of the Ranger
Nosedive was different.
Duke L’Orange couldn’t put
his finger on it, but since the boy returned from
The kid was lying.
A heated fight ensued when
Duke brought this evidence to Wildwing, who supported his little brother to the
nth degree. He trusted Nosedive, the team captain said. However, challenged
with palpable, tangible evidence, the older brother had no choice but to accept
that his brother lied, even to him. When he spoke to Nosedive, the boy had been
reserved, simply spurting out sincere apologies and empty excuses, to which
Wildwing didn’t accept. Finally, Nosedive just screamed at his brother to keep
out of his life and stormed off.
Wildwing was devastated but
had remained composed and livid.
The team had been on edge
since with the brothers’ feud, and it reached a new high a day later.
When Drake One’s alarm blared
through the Pond, Wildwing informed curtly there had been a break-in at Orbital
Industries. That wasn’t new, but Nosedive taking a seat in the back of the
Migrator was. Duke noticed the grim expression on Wildwing’s face when the
former thief reluctantly took the vacant seat. The leader said nothing, and his
brother didn’t, either.
Unfortunately, Duke’s luck
didn’t change. The team had split up to scour the laboratory’s warehouse, and
before convening after finding nothing, Wildwing radioed the oldest teammate to
collect Nosedive for him. Duke tried Nosedive on his comm., but to no avail. He
resorted to finding the teen via the homing device in his unit.
Walking around a stack of
boxes, he stiffened at the sound of a whooshing. Then a cacophony of crashing
boxes filled the area, followed by blaster fire.
“Stay still, so I can shoot
you, you mangy mallard!”
“Ch-yeah right!”
Duke dashed down the roll of
boxes and opened his comm. unit to let Wildwing know he needed backup.
Snatching his sword from his shoulder and activating it, he rounded the bend
and froze. His heart skipped a beat, and his mind could not process the sight
his wide eyes absorbed.
Nosedive was a blur of
light…or at least he thought that was Nosedive. The teal light bounced about
the room—hitting the wall, a row of boxes, even the floor before slamming into
Siege’s back. As the lizard tumbled forward, the teen’s form finally materialized
into a solid body, and in mid-air, Nosedive thrust his leg outward. When he
kicked Siege square in the stomach, the Saurian staggered backwards but
regained his balance momentarily, aiming his blaster. Nosedive jumped upward,
once more becoming a blur of light. His form bounced off a row of boxes and
plunged feet first into Siege’s gut, causing the lizards to fly across the
floor and into another column of boxes. The boxes crunched on impact and
toppled down upon Siege, successfully ending the fight. The lizard moaned
slightly as the he lay, hazarding tentative movements upon the floor. He
finally was able to reach his teleporter and vanished.
Nosedive appeared once more
upon the floor, crouching, one hand straight out to his left, the other flat
upon the floor to balance himself. It was a fighting technique, Duke realized,
but where would Nosedive learn to fight like that? When would he? More
pertinently, why would he?
He didn’t have the time to
process his thoughts as a horrified gasp sounded behind, delayed but completely
unhinged. Duke needn’t turn to know who it was. Nosedive tensed, standing
rigidly, and turned. His eyes widened considerably, but not at Duke—at
Wildwing, standing directly behind the former thief.
“What the hell was that!” Wildwing
hollered, storming past Duke and up to the shocked teenager. “What did you just
do?”
Nosedive winced at the
harshness of the voice and opened his beak, but nothing came out.
“Nosedive, what was that?” Wildwing demanded again. He grabbed his
brother by the armor collar and tugged the teen closer, so their beaks were
mere millimeters apart. “Answer me!”
“I—It’s nothing, Wing.
Really. I just…learned some new…t—things…on Earth…”
“What new things?” Wildwing
gave his brother a rough shake. “What’s going on?”
Nosedive looked at his
brother despairingly before averting his eyes. “I—I can’t tell you.”
“Why?” Wildwing asked
unrelentingly. “Why can’t you tell me? What are you hiding?” Starkly, harshly,
the older brother provoked, “Are you on drugs?”
“WHAT?” Nosedive’s face was
the answer in itself. Horrified at the sheer need for the accusation, the teen
still quickly freed himself from his brother’s grip and pushed Wildwing away.
“Have you gone completely mental?”
Wildwing, too angry, too
hurt, returned, “Am I mental? I’m not the one bouncing off of walls!”
“STARS!” Nosedive knotted his
hands in his hair, then tugged them out in frustration. “It’s not like I want
to keep this from you! It’s that I just can’t tell you!”
“Why?” Wildwing pressed
again. “You’ve always told me before! What did those kids in
“I’M
Eyes sunken, Wildwing looked
away. Even though his face was obscured by the Mask, Duke saw the tumult
ravaging the younger man. Brokenly, soft from the heavy emotions, Wildwing
replied, “Because you lost that trust the moment you lied to me.”
Nosedive staggered backwards,
as if hit by an invisible force. Beak agape, tears glistening in his eyes, the
teen stared transfixed at his brother. Abruptly, he bristled away from
Wildwing, forcing his way between his team members and fleeing.
Duke stared in disbelief at
Wildwing, who turned his back to the team. His shoulders slumped, and his head
ducked. He took off the Mask and let it drop to the floor from his limp hands
before covering his face with his gauntlets. There was only one reason why
Wildwing ever removed the Mask after a fight—and that was to cry.
He made no motion to follow
his brother.
Shaking his head, Duke
realized it wasn’t a good idea to let an emotionally sick teenager on the
road. “Kid!” he called, watching Nosedive
finally slam open a door to the outside and escape the tension. The former
thief ran after him. “Kid, wait up!”
Duke burst through the door.
He halted and peered about the dimming sky for any sight of his younger
teammate. The lights of
Somehow, defying physics and
logic, Nosedive was gone.
*^*^*
Ducking behind a crate, a
pink-haired girl turned to her sister and smirked. Together, the two turned to
the scene before them, watching as the white mallard seemed to collapse in
front of them.
Satisfied, the two
disappeared in glistening flashes of pink and gold.
*^*^*
Lothor smirked. There was
nothing in his life he truly enjoyed as much as causing havoc on Earth. The
terror of its unsuspecting population ranked high on his list of things to do,
but a close second was the emotional upheaval of a certain group of
power-enhanced teenagers. For a team that caused him so much strife, he took
pleasure in making them squirm.
“Are you sure?” he questioned
his two insistently nodding nieces. “You are completely positive the teal
ranger is having emotional difficulties with his team?”
“Not just his team,” Marah
percolated. “He’s lost the trust of his older brother.”
“So?” Lothor dismissed,
waving his hand. “I’ve lost the trust of my brother, and you don’t see me
crying about it.”
“No, you turned him into a
guinea pig,” Karpi said flatly. Shaking her head, she shifted gears. “Look,
Uncle, he was really upset about it, and you said you wanted to get him back
for betraying you. This is perfect!”
“Yes…” Lothor rubbed the
bottom of his chin contemplatively. He narrowed his eyes. “Yes…perhaps it is
time we met those ducks that hissing lizard keeps complaining about and
introduce them to their teammate’s other life. Zurgane!”
The black and red monster
treaded into the room, bowing hastily. “Yes, sir?”
“Go to
*^*^*
“Do you really think
Nosedive’s on drugs?” Canard asked, shocked, as if he couldn’t believe the
words he had just uttered.
Sitting on the couch, void of
the Mask, Wildwing shook his head. “No, I don’t, but he’s hiding something from
me, and he’s lying about it.” The
last words made him wince and advert his eyes painfully.
Handing Wildwing a mug of hot
chocolate, Tanya sat down on the couch next to him. “I take it this has never
happened before.”
“No,” Wildwing said, taking a
sip, then amended bitterly, “At least not that I know of…well, besides when
Canard returned, but even then I understood it.”
“Maybe it was only the second
time, y’know?” Duke replied offhandedly, falling onto Mallory’s recliner’s arm.
“Do you have any reason to think there was another time?”
Rubbing his fingers over the
edge of the cup, Wildwing sat in contemplative silence for several minutes.
Finally, he sighed loudly. “No, I don’t. I—I just don’t understand why now.
We’ve always trusted each other, and he’s never given me a reason not to.”
“Once the beauty of innocence
is tainted, it is hard to regain its former perfection without the dew of
veracity.”
Wildwing blinked and shifted
his view to the colossal figure sitting cross-legged in the corner, seemingly
mediating. “Uh, Grin? Would you care to translate?”
Grin’s eyes opened slowly,
and he affixed Wildwing with a serious gaze. “Once your brother reveals the
tribulations that he has had to face, then your trust in him will be
reinstated.”
“What tribulations could he
possibly be facing that we don’t know about?” Mallory snapped.
Before Grin could answer,
Drake One’s alarm pierced the air.
The ducks vacated the Main
Room, their civvies shimmering to battle gear as they ran. Entering the Ready
Room, Wildwing was unhinged at the sound of an explosion and the rocking of the
ground.
“What was that?”
Tanya rushed past him and hit
a few, chosen buttons on Drake One’s console. Onto the screen flickered a
picture of the parking lot. A black—creature?—fired shots of black fire at the
Pond doors, while another green one with white pants blasted the doors with red
lightning. Behind them, two girls, one with pink hair, one with brown, watched
amusedly.
“What are those?” Canard
asked vacantly.
“I don’t know,” Wildwing
replied, placing the Mask on his face, “but we’re going to find out.”
*^*^*
“He thinks I’m on drugs!”
Nosedive spurted, laying his elbow on his bent knee. Sitting on the counter
inside Dustin’s workshop at Storm Chargers, now dressed in long shorts and a
no-sleeved teal tee-shirt, he fixed the other teenager with a long-suffering
gaze. “How could he ever think that?”
Dustin shrugged, wrenching
off a bolt from the dirt bike and wiping it on his faded and oiled yellow
shirt. “Dude, I don’t understand why he’s so whacked. So you’re gone for long
periods of time? What’s the big deal? Sounds to me like you’re a typical
teenager.”
Nosedive shook his head.
“None of us are typical teenagers.”
“I think it’s the curse of
being a ranger,” Shane replied, walking in and pushing himself up on the
counter next to Nosedive. “When my bro came to town, he thought I was just
slacking off, not reaching my potential and all that crap.”
Nosedive shook his head.
“This is different. You’re not close to your brother, and besides, your brother
isn’t imprinted on you.”
“Imprinted?” Dustin repeated,
his forehead crinkled in bewilderment.
“Dude, didn’t you pay
attention in biology class?” Shane admonished. “When ducks hatch, they imitate
the first person they see.” He looked at Nosedive, who made a point not to meet
his eyes. “Your brother was the first person you saw?”
“Yeah,” Nosedive croaked, wincing.
“Me and Wing, we tell each other everything. That’s why it hurts so much not to
tell him, and I’m sure he feels the same way, not knowing. But,” he scowled,
“he knows I’d never do drugs. He’d know if I was on drugs.”
“But he doesn’t know you’re a
power ranger,” Dustin pointed out, flicking his wrench toward Nosedive.
Oil flew toward them, causing
both Nosedive and Shane to jump backwards on the counter. “Dude, watch where
you’re pointing that thing!”
“Yeah! Oil doesn’t come out
as easily on feathers as it does on skin!” Nosedive growled, then deflated with
a gasping sigh. “No, Wing doesn’t know I’m a ranger.” He closed his eyes and
leaned back against the wall. “Why does it have to be this way? Why can’t I
just tell him?”
“Because it’s a danger to
him,” Shane emphasized, hitting Nosedive in the shoulder. “If he knew, then he
could be—”
“—I know. I know,” Nosedive
interrupted, ducking his head. “He’d be attacked without powers and be in more
danger. I still don’t like it, though, and it kills me to think he doesn’t
trust me anymore.” He looked away, afraid he couldn’t contain the tears that
rose in his eyes. “Stars, it’s not like I’ve ever given him a reason not to.”
A hand clasped him on the
shoulder, and he almost yelped at the oil now polluting his feathers.
“Maybe it’ll all just blow
over, y’know?” Dustin suggested. “Maybe he’ll get over it.”
Nosedive would have laughed.
“You don’t know my brother.” Shaking off his friend’s hand, Nosedive looked
down at his comm. “I better get going. If I’m not home by eight, my brother
will freak out so much more than he already has and put me under house arrest.”
As he scooted off the
counter, a hand grabbed by him the elbow. “You’ll be okay?” Shane asked
urgently.
Nosedive smiled slightly.
Leaders were all the same. “Yeah, thanks, Shane. I think this is just something
I have to figure out on my own. See you guys at practice tomorrow.”
As he moved to leave, an
obscenely noisy alarm blared from his right wrist. Flipping open his ducks’
comm. unit, he felt his heart stop. His eyes widened, and he forgot to conceal
his ranger powers.
“Someone’s attacking the
Pond!”
Without a second thought, he
streaked out of the store, not even glancing toward the astonished Kelly behind
the counter.
*^*^*
Wildwing wrapped his gauntlet
around a parked car and fired at the creatures shooting blasts at his team. His
puck smacked directly into the black creature’s chest but did nothing more than
make the creature stumble backwards a few steps. He even stayed erect. Whirling
around, Wildwing gasped deeply and covered his head with his gauntlets as fire
and lightning slammed the opposite side of the car.
When the attack died down, he
did a headcount of his team to make sure they were still alive. Canard and Duke
were just inside the entrance of the Pond, laying down suppressive fire as Grin
attempted to take out the black creature. Grin’s attack was abruptly cut short
at the sight of the pink-haired girl shooting off spurts of pink energy at him.
He flipped out of the way and behind another car, just missing the shots by
mere millimeters. Tanya and Mallory were both behind an edge of the Pond. The
wall was just big enough to fit the two females, causing them to duck and avoid
blasts as necessary. However, the leader knew well it was only a matter time
before they were hit.
Wildwing peeked over the hood
of the car and scanned with the Mask for some sort of weakness in these
monsters. So far, he’d come up with nothing. He looked at the girls behind the
black and green creatures. They, too, seemed different from the ordinary but
more human. Maybe they could be easily taken down with the right opponent,
which would lower the number of blasts being shot at his team.
He flipped open his comm.
“Mallory, Tanya, the two in the back are yours! Grin, I’ll give you cover and
make sure you have a clear route to the black monster! Canard, Duke, the green
guy’s yours!”
As a collective affirmative
sounded, Wildwing stood, blocking the blasts of gold and pink power with his
gauntlets. Firing back in retaliation, he shouted at his teammates, “MOVE!
NOW!”
“Perhaps you should take your
own advice,” a sinister voice claimed behind him.
Whirling, Wildwing had no
time to react as a sword impaled his flesh at his left hip. He couldn’t keep in
the bloodcurdling scream that sounded from his beak, and his legs failed to
keep him standing. His knees buckled under him. He raised his contorted and
clenched face up to see the fish creature through half-lidded, tired eyes,
evident even through the Mask.
The shark-man placed his foot
flat on Wildwing’s chest and pushed off, forcing Wildwing to the ground and
recollecting his bloodied sword.
As Wildwing lay, his blood
seeping from his wound, pain radiating agonizingly from his ripped side, he
faintly heard, “The teal ranger will forever regret betraying Lothor.”
To Be Continued…